There aren’t a lot of Thanksgiving songs out there, you know. This is an absolute classic, however, and Roy & I have made it a “family tradition” to play it every Thanksgiving. It just wouldn’t be the same without a little bit of Arlo Guthrie.

ALICE’S RESTAURANT

Arlo Guthrie

This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the

Restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,

That’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song Alice’s Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

Walk right in it’s around the back

Just a half a mile from the railroad track

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on – two years ago on

Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the

Restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the

Church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and

Fasha the dog. And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of

Room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin’ all that room,

Seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t

Have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it’d be

A friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So

We took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW

Microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed

On toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the

Dump saying, “Closed on Thanksgiving.” And we had never heard of a dump

Closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off

Into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn’t find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the

Side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the

Cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile

Is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we

Decided to throw our’s down.

That’s what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving

Dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the

Next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, “Kid,

We found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of

Garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it.” And

I said, “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope

Under that garbage.”

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we

Finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down

And pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the

Police officer’s station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the

Shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the

Police officer’s station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at

The police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for

Being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn’t very likely, and

We didn’t expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out

And told us never to be seen driving garbage around the vicinity again,

Which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer’s station

There was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was

Both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said “Obie, I don’t think I

Can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.” He said, “Shut up, kid.

Get in the back of the patrol car.”

And that’s what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the

Quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of

Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop

Signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the

Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars,

Being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to

Get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of

Cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer’s station.

With the things that have been going on in Government Circles of late, both within State Government and within the Federal Government … and since I work as a hated “Government Analyst” for the State of California (which apparently makes me fair game to any and all taxpayers, even though I work incredibly hard for my paycheck and would be paid more in private industry – if it were hiring but it isn’t due to the sucky economy), like my earlier post implies, there are times I can say that the overall attacks on “government waste” are warranted. I can see it from inside the system as well as outside.

When nothing in government moves fast and no one person that works for the government can make a unilateral decision like is being implied with the IRS debacle, it wears me out to get thrown under the bus like a lot of the powers-that-be like to do to those that are working the trenches. Some of what I see, however, is rampant in not only government work but in private industry.

For example, when there is a major IT project due within the next month that is required by legislation and parts of it will affect and cover the subject matter in which I specialize but it’s not done correctly even though the proper information was provided to said powers-that-be 6 MONTHS AGO and it can’t be programmed by IT in time to be part of the roll-out, well …

Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

… particularly when I’m asked “what are we going to do?” This simply makes me want to respond with “who is this ‘we’, kemosabe?” I’m not part of the development. I’m not part of the solution. I’m definitely out of my element when it comes to IT and computer programming. I don’t know what you are going to do, but I am not going to do anything. That’s up to you.

Therefore, I ask this of the FBI:

After you are all done looking for Jimmy Hoffa, would you please move onto the next Jimmy and help him out, as a lot of us need to find that same thing right about now.

That will solve any issue … at least once I leave work and get home where it’s safe.